A demonstration of the next release of Novell's Linux for desktops drew cheers and applause Wednesday, although the final version of the software is not expected for some months. Nat Friedman, the company's vice president of Linux desktop engineering, showed Novell Linux Desktop 10 playing videos and MP3 music files, and exchanging music and photos with an iPod and a digital camera, in a keynote presentation at the Solutions Linux conference and trade show on the outskirts of Paris.

And to clarify _further_ (sorry, I'm longwinded today...) the reason I say it's simplistic to say it's "illegal" to distribute an MP3-playing distro in the US is that patent law is civil law. Civil law is not like criminal law: there's no patent police who drive around arresting patent violators. The civil law exists as a way to facilitate certain civil and commercial relationships; the courts that deal with civil law are a kind of last-resort arbitration system for cases where two people or commercial entities have a dispute they can't resolve any other way. Ask absolutely any company lawyer and they'll tell you they'd far rather be able to settle a dispute with a private arrangement than with a lawsuit. A lot of people don't really appreciate this and tend to think along the lines of "OMG if you decode an MP3 in America Fraunhofer will set the FBI on you!!!"